How Aroma Bit Can Help You Visualize Smell

Compared to existing aroma sensors currently on the market, Aroma Bit is far smaller, can provide much higher resolution and the processing speed is quicker.

Aroma Bit

You can share your delicious dinner to your friends via Instagram. You can also share your favorite music on Spotify. But smell…?

Our sense of smell is very important. It can alert us to danger, increase our appetite, affect our emotions and deepen our memories. But so far, we could not communicate smell without actually inhaling it.

Enter Aroma Bit. This new technology is based on the Odor Imaging Sensor that works the same way your nose functions. Shunichiro Kuroki, president and CEO of Aroma Bit, says, “Unlike conventional gas sensors, which detects only a specific molecule included in odor, the new sensor has the capability to detect pretty much anything that has smell from food, flowers to potentially even certain diseases like cancer by monitoring the molecular interactions of a person’s breath.”

Here is how the sensor works. In case of humans, our odor receptors recognize each odor molecule’s different adsorptivity responses and our brain identifies a specific odor. Aroma Bit’s Odor Imaging Sensor functions in the same manner. The sensor has two parts: the sensor element and the receptor membrane that covers the sensor element. Each receptor membrane has unique absorption-desorption characteristics. When odor molecules hit the membrane, the sensor monitors the interactions between them in the form of frequency. The results are expressed as patterns where different shapes indicate the molecular makeup of a smell as well as the intensity of the smell. Now the invisible, subjective sense of smell is visualized.

Aroma Bit detects and converts smell into visual patterns.

Aroma Bit

With multiple types of membranes, you can analyze a more diverse range of odor. Currently Aroma Bit offers 35 sensor elements and the corresponding receptor membranes to their clients. (The company has already developed over a hundred types of membranes, and is hoping to multiply the number, which is closer to the human capacity equivalent of 400 sensor elements.)

The potential of the device is huge. For example, the company developed Aroma Code, which converts scent in products into digital codes. By adding Aroma Code to items such as food, perfume and flowers, you can support purchase decisions effectively by providing the key product characteristics. Also, you can personalize product recommendations by analyzing purchase history of customers.

In order to demonstrate how Aroma Code works, Aroma Bit set up a website along with a smartphone application Milunio, where users can select and compare various products with Aroma Code, e.g. wine, coffee and cheese.

Currently Aroma Bit’s clients include manufacturers of food, beverage and precision machinery parts. When the mass production becomes possible, the device is set to retail for around $150. “The sensor can be used to monitor food spoilage in refrigerators and readiness in microwaves and ovens. For example, if you prefer heavily toasted bread, the sensor can enable the oven to produce the precise result,” says Kuroki.

Shunichiro Kuroki, founder and CEO of Aroma Bit

Aroma Bit

There are other sensors on the market, but Aroma Bit is far smaller, can provide much higher resolution and the processing speed is away quicker, “almost as fast as the human nose” according to Kuroki.

Aroma Bit received the Best Innovative Sensor Technology Award at IDTechEx Sensor Europe in Berlin, Germany in April 2019. The company also secured 250 million JPY from Sony Corporation’s corporate venture capital arm, Sony Innovation Fund in March 2019.

Kuroki says, “We are planning to miniaturize the device further, improve sensitivity and lower production costs. Eventually we hope to develop new applications such as search engines by aroma and automated management systems of shelf-life sensitive items.”